War Protests Breakout in US Universities Demanding Gaza Ceasefire

News:

Global attention has turned to universities across the United States, where students have erected encampments to demand action to end ‘Israel’s’ war on the Gaza Strip. The growing protests have taken root on the campuses of some of the country’s top academic institutions, including Columbia and Harvard. (Aljazeera, 26/04/2024)

Protests calling for universities to boycott companies and individuals with ties to ‘Israel’ amid the ongoing war there have swept college campuses across the US.

Columbia was the first university to see a major pro-Palestinian encampment form on campus, and among the first to be accused of antisemitism. More than 100 protesters were arrested last week after the Ivy League university's president asked police to clear the protest site. Her request followed her testimony to Congress about the university's response to alleged antisemitism on campus. But the mass arrests appear to have galvanised the movement, according to demonstrators who remained onsite one week later. (BBC)

Comment:

More than 500 arrests have occurred on major university campuses that include professors, with no regard to the peaceful conduct in the encampments. Like a spark for a wildfire, universities saw flash encampments and protests all in support of Palestine following the lead by Columbia University. In Austin, Texas, the governor ordered state troopers to arrest protesters. Police have been called and other riot troops as well, all to silence and disengage the protests and break up the camps set up on campuses that call on the permanent ceasefire on Gaza by the criminal Jewish entity and its brutal forces.

Talk of noble ethical practice proved to be weightless and was snubbed by the local authorities and the supposed high ranking university boards. Freedom of expression, the right to assemble and the freedom to vocalize disdain in a non-violent manner was struck down with a heavy hand as evident in the many videos of the physical force demonstrated on the peaceful protesters young and old. University boards are in tune with the US foreign policies for the complacency of the ‘Israeli’ war on Gaza and its genocide. Yet the brave with the beating hearts and sound conscience raise their voices in support of Palestine and the people of Gaza and in condemning the genocide by the Jewish entity. “We are not going anywhere until our demands are met,” Khymani James, a student at Columbia University, said during a news briefing.

Public pressure is mounting in the US for the US administration to change its stance with the Jewish entity– yet this will fall on deaf ears as the US government has set its sights on a larger aim that extends beyond Palestine to the Middle East region.

Now if the Muslim Armed Forces in the Muslim lands comply and concede to the public pressure in their lands, here would arise a tangible end for the genocide committed by the criminal occupation in the Blessed Land. How many more massive protests have to occur for the Muslim Armies to move? How many more mass graves have to be unearthed for the Muslim Armies to move? How many more massacres have to kill Palestinians for the Muslim armies to roar in rage???

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Manal Bader